Belden Lane is a teacher, author, storyteller, and theologian who explores the deep connection between nature and spirituality, and in particular the threads between those topics and men’s spirituality work.

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In this episode of A Congruent Life, Belden shares about:

• discovering his love of nature as a young child,
• the yearning for wilderness in the middle part of life,
• getting out of your own head, and embracing being a “recovering scholar,”
• the many different lessons that nature has to teach us,
• his own “calling story” that led him to accepting the mantle of being a storyteller,
• reflections about accepting the names we are given,
• dealing with “false self” issues of impression management, the letters behind our name, and tiring of the masks we wear,
• the “true self” disciplines that now bring him joy in this stage of his life.

Links from the Show

• Belden’s website
• Illuman
• Soularize conference for men: November 2015

Belden’s books:

• Backpacking with the Saints: Wilderness Hiking as Spiritual Practice
• Ravished by Beauty: The Surprising Legacy of Reformed Spirituality
• The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality
• Landscapes of the Sacred: Geography and Narrative in American Spirituality

Belden’s “Last Lecture” presentation at Saint Louis University:

https://vimeo.com/17897411

Transcript